4 Resolutions Your Small Business Should Make

This time of year, you’ve got a fresh slate, a clean canvas. What you do with this year is entirely up to you. You can keep your head down and keep working in your business, rather than on it (if you don’t get that reference, go buy The E-Myth immediately), or you can set some resolutions to ensure your business grows exponentially this year.

Here’s a list of resolutions to get you started.

#1. I Will Market My Business, Even When I’m Busy

I’m guilty of not doing this. When business is pouring in, it’s difficult to set aside time to find new customers, but it’s essential. Keep updating your profiles on social media. Keep blogging. Keep networking. Even if you don’t need the business right now, you will later.

And my tip: use Hootsuite to schedule social updates and manage multiple profiles

#2. I Will Digitize My Processes

If you think about it, why do you really need paper? It’s a waste of trees, and it takes up space. With so many great applications and software available, you can actually be more productive by taking those activities to your computer or mobile device, for everything from employee schedules to document processing. Here are my favorite ways to go digital:

Google Docs: share documents for editing and make it easier to keep track of revisions.

ScheduleBase: create digital employee schedules and automatically email them to employees to save time and cut down on calls from them.

Insightly: keep track of customers and take notes on interactions. Share with your team to manage the sales pipeline.

#3. I Will Spend More Time Focused on Strategy

Going back to my “working in your business” comment: if you only handle the day-to-day and don’t work on strategically building your business, you can’t expect it to grow. When’s the last time you wrote or revised your business plan? It could probably stand to have the dust blown off of it. Here are resources to help:

#4. I Will Measure My Goals

When you create resolutions (or call ‘em goals, if you prefer), the key is to make them measurable and actionable. Don’t just say you want to increase sales. How much do you want to increase them? See where they were last year, and get a dollar amount you want to hit in 2014. Break that down by quarter to make it easier to track how successful you are throughout the year. Then set up tasks you can do to achieve your goal. Want more sales? Hire more salespeople.

Connect with Tweak Your Biz:

Tweak Your Biz is an international, business advice community and online publication. Today it is read by over 140,000 business people each month (unique visitors, Google Analytics, December, 2013). See our review of 2013 for more information.

An outstanding title can increase tweets, Facebook Likes, and visitor traffic by 50% or more. Generate great titles for your articles and blog posts with the Tweak Your Biz Title Generator.

Want to get your business featured on Tweak Your Biz? Check out #TYBspotlight.

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, an Internet marketing firm specializing
in marketing communications, copywriting and blog posts. She is also the founder of How to Create a Press Release, a free resource for entrepreneurs looking to generate their own PR. She’s written two books: 101 Entrepreneur Tips and Internet Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs, and blogs for several sites, including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, as well as CorpNet, Small Business Trends, and BizLaunch.

Add Your Comment

http://www.ahaingroup.com/ Niall Devitt

Hi Susan,

These are great. For me, the forth resolution you suggested: measuring goals is critical but proves difficult for many. Difficult, because we rarely reach all our goals and facing up to this can sometimes make people feel like they’ve failed. However, it’s the measuring of our goals that also allow us to learn from mistakes, improve upon what we do and ultimately not repeat those same mistakes.

I would like to wish you a Happy New Year and continued success during 2014.

Warm regards,
Niall

http://www.ahaingroup.com/ Sian Phillips

Happy New Year Susan and another great post from you. Your point two is something I am working on with one of my clients this year though I will be taking on board all your other suggestions too. Thanks as always

Sabina Stoiciu

Susan, very well written article. Thanks for the useful links in each section. I agree with you on what you said regarding resolution number 1. Personally, I find it very challenging to think about and act to find other customers, while your business is already thriving. Because this can change any time, always looking for new customers should be, indeed, one of the most important resolutions for a business.

http://about.me/Lindeskog lyceum1776

Another resolution will be: I will eat more eggs! Ping Susan @eggmarketing ! 😉

Recent Comments

About

Tweak Your Biz is a business community - a place where business professionals like you can stand out. Read the specialists, share your opinions and sign up to become recognized for sharing your expertise by writing on this site!